Infographic: CMS Moves the Needle Forward on RPM Reimbursement

With its final 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, the agency is making it a little easier for healthcare organizations to develop and sustain remote patient monitoring (RPM) programs.

As healthcare organizations make plans to move more services out of the hospital and into the home setting, they’re banking on remote patient monitoring (RPM) technology to keep track of patients outside the clinical setting.

But the path to sustainability has been rocky. Recent news that UnitedHealthcare is drastically cutting back RPM coverage to only two use cases is giving some healthcare leaders second thoughts about moving forward with new programs. And while supporters are blasting the payer’s decision, many others say there just isn’t a good business case yet for RPM.

CMS has also been deliberately slow in offering Medicare reimbursement for what it calls remote physiological monitoring and remote therapeutic monitoring, saying the evidence isn’t there yet for more coverage. That said, CMS did make four significant changes to RPM coverage in its 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. Advocates say this could help health system and hospitals expand their programs and pull in the data needed to prove scalability and sustainability.

In a blog post, Carrie Nixon and Olivia Goldner of the Nixon Law Group called the MPFS “one of the most consequential rulemaking cycles” for RPM.

Here's how CMS is moving the needle on RPM coverage:

Copy of 4 tips by Eric Wicklund